For over the past decade, improved efficiency in digital data management has been afforded by the use of integrated data management systems, such the the IDMS/R (integrated data management system/relational), available from Cullinet Software, Inc., the assignee of the subject application for patent.
In the use of the IDMS/R, certain logical rules are implemented in forming the data base. Thus, the data base planner first defines data elements and then relates the data elements to one another. The data elements are then grouped into records and the records are interrelated. The logical model is essentially what the user thinks the information or data looks like and how that information is ultimately depicted on the user's terminal or printed report. While the physical storage and accessing of the data base is completely transparent to the user, the relational model provides the interface from the data base to the user-desired and familiar two-dimensional data table.
The data tables derived from the database are customarily quite large and are inclusive of vast information not relevant to a given user inquiry. Through relational operators in the IDMS/R, such as SELECT, PROJECT and JOIN, and menu-driven data selection, the user may obtain information from a given table or select and combine information from plural tables.
Considering known use of the foregoing type of database and management system in a banking function, one area thereof may contain customer names and another area may contain account information. A junction record is reached by entry of customer name or account number by a teller and the junction record ties into the account information. Customary software (COBOL MOVE AND OBTAIN) retrieves data from the database. Application software then effects the banking function which may then be under implementation, such as, interest accrual and posting, deposit accumulation, withdrawal, etc.
In the systems heretofore provided by the assignee hereof employing the IDMS/R for effecting banking functions, application software has been provided specific to each banking task, for example, a software package for DDA (demand deposit accounts) management, a software package for retirement fund account management, and the like.
From applicants' viewpoint, such heretofore known banking systems based on the IDMS/R do not maximize benefits obtainable therefrom and are inefficient further in their requirements for separate applications software packages.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,346,442, entitled "Securities Brokerage-Cash Management System" and issued on Aug. 24, 1982, is seen as disclosing a single software package addressing plural accounting functions. However, the system of the '442 patent is seen as quite specific in its direction, i.e., to composite management of securities brokerage and cash management, and falls far short of encompassing the totality of banking transactions of a traditional institution. While the example under discussion has been banking-related, applicants' comments apply more generally to computer implementation of various business functions.
A further observation of applicants is that they see heretofore known computer implementation of commercial functions to be to be pre-ordained and largely invariant upon planning. Thus, the banking application software packages of assignee heretofore provided were of omnibus type, inclusive of all functions collective to all intended installations. The system of the '442 patent is likewise of pre-ordained configuration. From applicants' viewpoint, it would be highly desirable for a planner for an installation to ordain the contents of a system at its installation and to have capability for adding or modifying system functions.